Charlie Reid is taking a ST beating. 6 IP 16H 10 ER 15.00 ERA 3.17 WHIP --- 3 appearances. This guys holds the franchise record for lowest seasonal ERA just THREE seasons ago as a starter (2.99) and he is only 31. First and foremost I understand that 6 IP is by no means a measuring stick. What concerns me is that he got shelled in all three appearances. Nobody else on the staff got beat up like him. And yes... I am sure many forum readers will suggest he is not SP material. But I am a first time player, first season - and this is all I can do. Player Payroll is maxed out and nobody is biting on any trades I have proposed....

My guess is that HBD has some intangibles that I cannot see statistically and maybe he is in a cold spell. I thought about solutions... but they all require waiver wire and I cannot risk losing a #3 or #4 pitcher just because he is in a "spell".

Do players sometimes have horrid Spring Trainings and then rebound as the season begins in this game?

I could wait out this cold streak (if that's what it is) by using a tandem start mix. But I think I am just going to let him have 2 or 3 starts in regular season first to see what's going on... In the experience of veteran gamers... can this guy rebound?

Players don't go through cold or hot spells inside from randomness. Like if you flipped a coin 8 times in a row and got tails every time. It's just bad luck. Be happy it's ST and not the regular season.

you might have the pull rating set too low. That dude should have a 3 or maybe even a 4. 1 means leaving him out there unless he is being shelled like he has been in ST, 5 means pull him at the first sign of real trouble.

Posted by greeny9 on 7/17/2013 7:06:00 PM (view original):you might have the pull rating set too low. That dude should have a 3 or maybe even a 4. 1 means leaving him out there unless he is being shelled like he has been in ST, 5 means pull him at the first sign of real trouble.

I invited 70 players to ST. Based on my forum research, I decided to try and give players as many appearances as possible. All my SP have 40 max pitches and I left everyone at pull - 3 except for the closers who at 1. For my last 4 ST games I am allowing some very young SP prospects with good projections to go 60 max pitches. The guy in the OP is gonna rest to avoid injury... and he will get the nod for SP4 - I will take your advice and bump his pull rating to 4 for awhile... just in case.

This game sure is difficult to avoid mistakes as a rookie owner. For example : signing my own aging, mediocre, and starting to decline FA's because I didn't know the regular FA market would hold so much value. I made a decision to let one 36 yr old go and I thought that was a big deal. Little did I know about 3 other vets were asking much more than they are actually worth. Two of them will start this season in AAA. Oh well.. hoping I get over .500. That's the goal. .

Posted by a_ersberg on 7/17/2013 10:01:00 PM (view original):Were your ML fielders playing in those games?

He's not very good, and with a 33 fb rating... he's going to get hit pretty hard

Yea.. he had BL fielding. I guess his 2.99 ERA from 3 seasons ago made me think he was better than he might be. I am now considering some other medicore options on my staff to replace him in the starting rotation. For example... I have Richard Hall whom I obtained via rule 5 draft. His splits are not good at all, but all other stats seem healthy along with good p1 and p2. I also am considering a SP tandem of Terry Black and Billy Weinhardt . And finally... before FA ended prior to ST... I picked up Felipe Olivares for 1.5 mil . I thought this guy would be useable... but I see that his p1 and p2 are really not that good and it was probably a mistake to sign him in the first place ( learning experience ).

As far as I can see... the tandem option looks best. I will probably let the guy in the OP get a few starts though... just to see if he is really crashing and burning or if it was just a coincidental random bashing 3 gms in a row,.

As others have said, he's not great, but he's not terrible. He's a solid enough #5 starter. A guy you can skip over when warranted, but a guy who is going to put some decent innings together, while occasionally getting shelled for stretches. Its only ST, so don't worry too much about the results, they're meaningless. He's got a low vL rating and due to the expanded rosters of typical ST teams, teams could be stacking their lineups w/ lefty hitters on their ML team, as well as lefty prospects in their minors, not giving him the advantage he'd have of facing more righties in the regular seasons when rosters are set at 25. Can't say for sure, but I rarely look at the oppossing pitcher in ST, but set my lineups in a nature that I spread out my at bats to major leaguers and prospects thru the course of the entire spring training.

Season 22 was a "lucky" season, he won't be putting those numbers up again, but season 21 & 24 were more than respectable for a 5th starter, season 23, while not good, won't kill you. Set his pull count to 4, so when he starts to get hit hard, it will limit the damage. When things are going good, he'll stick around for longer stretches.